Muhammad Rasul was the leader of the
High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (HCIEA) ( ; ) was a breakaway Taliban faction active in Afghanistan since 2015. The faction broke away from the Taliban in 2015 following the appointment of Akhtar Mansour as the leader of the Tal ...
, a
Taliban dissident group in
Afghanistan, until the group's dissolution in 2021. He was a Taliban-appointed governor of
Nimruz Province,
Afghanistan. Rasul exerted pressure and suppression on Pashtun factions unpopular with the Taliban, and made a considerable fortune controlling cross-border
drug-smuggling through Nimruz.
Early life
Rasul is believed to have been born in the mid-1960s in
Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
Early career
Taliban rule
Rasul was the Governor for Nimruz Province when the Taliban were in power during the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. He is said to have had close relations with founding Taliban leader
Mohammed Omar Muhammad Omar ( ar, محمد عمر, link=no), and other spellings such as Mohamed Omer, may refer to the following people:
Sportspeople
* Muhammad Umar (wrestler) (born 1975), Pakistani wrestler
* Mohammad Omar (footballer, born 1976), Emirati ...
, and is considered to have been an "old and trusted friend" to him.
Invasion of US
Rasul and his functionaries fled Nimroz following U.S. airstrikes on 13 November 2001, and his office was taken over by
Abdul Karim Brahui. After the Invasion of Afghanistan, Rasul became the Taliban's shadow governor of
Farah Province.
Afghan Civil War
In 2015, Rasul broke away from the main Taliban leadership and established his own group, the
High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (HCIEA) ( ; ) was a breakaway Taliban faction active in Afghanistan since 2015. The faction broke away from the Taliban in 2015 following the appointment of Akhtar Mansour as the leader of the Tal ...
.
The split was a result of disagreement over the ascension of
Akhtar Mansour as leader of the Taliban. Rasul's followers accuse Mansour of hijacking the movement due to personal greed. Rasul says that he and his supporters tried to persuade him to step down and let the new leader be chosen by the Taliban council, but Mansour refused.
The High Council was suspected by some to be an
Iranian ally, although Iran sided with the Islamic Emirate's leadership against it.
They have demanded that foreign troops leave Afghanistan as a precursor for peace talks. Rasul's Taliban group has voiced that neither
al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
, nor the
Islamic State are welcome in Afghanistan. The group has also been reported of being supported by Afghan government though both the group and Afghan officials have denied this.
Rasul's faction dissolved peacefully into the main Taliban following the
Taliban offensive of 2021, ending its independent existence and turning over all of its military equipment to the Taliban.
In January 2022, Muhammad Rasul met with defense minister
Mullah Yaqoob in Kabul and stated his support for the new government.
Attack on Haibatullah
During the Friday prayer on August 16, 2019, a powerful blast tore through a grand mosque in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The attack on the mosque, frequented by Taliban’s leadership, killed the brother and father of
Hibatullah Akhundzada. The High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that the prime target was Haibatullah.
References
External links
image of Mullah Rasooltaken from the website > S. Metz
articlepublished by
World Politics Review
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
November 13, 2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasul, Mullah Muhammad
Governors of Nimruz Province
Politicians of Kandahar Province
Taliban governors
Living people
1965 births